Asking for a change in the whole system, joint forum demanded wage as per Minimum Wage Act. replacing negotiable wage.

SILIGURI: Tea industry in West Bengal is heading towards a major uncertainty with over 5 lakh tea workers going on aggressive movement steps demanding immediate resolution of their years old unsettled wage issue.

“Now pushed to the brink, we have sought intervention of Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on the implementation of Minimum Wages Act for the tea garden workers,” said Saman Pathak, Centre of Indian Trade Unions, Darjeeling District Secretary and leading functionary of Joint forum, a platform of 29 tea trade unions. Trade Union front of state’s ruling party TMC is not in the forum.

“We have become compelled to take many more aggressive steps in different directions to strengthen our movement,” said Pathak.

As per the practice since 1977, workers wage used to be negotiated for three years term. The uncertainty began at the end of 2011-14 term on 31st March 2014

Asking for a change in the whole system, joint forum demanded wage as per Minimum Wage Act. replacing negotiable wage.

After initial reluctance, State Government finally formed a committee in 2015 to propose a new wage structure as per Minimum Wage Act. But, “Things stopped there. All seem to have completely forgotten the matter,” said Alok Chakroborty, senior INTUC leader.

“We are ready to accept any reasonable pay system that Government finalizes. But we are suffering because of this worker vs Government deadlock,” said senior planters.

“Beside agitation programs of the workers, the staff and sub staff section also embarked on movement putting whole system under pressure. All these despite our implementation of interim wage and salary hike for staff members as per tri-partite meetings and advice of state labour department,” said .S Guha Thakurta, Secretary Dooars Branch of Indian Tea Association(DBITA).

“Severely stressed with escalating cost of production and un-remunerative price coupled with devastating rain or flood condition, this work halt has put a serious dent on our financial viability in Dooars region. But we have failed to find any cooperative gesture from the workers side to handle that. That’s unfortunate,” added Guhathakurta.